Magical Thinking
by NotMarge
Summary: Chester Creb wasn't always the fractured man he became. He didn't want to be.


I do not own American Horror Story: Freak Show.

And I never asked to see Neil Patrick Harris doing _that_. Ever.

Magical Thinking

* * *

><p>If anyone were to see the real Chester Creb (save Marjorie) and ask him why he was the way he was, he couldn't have provided an honest answer.<p>

Because he hid it from himself so well, most of the time he didn't even know it was there.

He hadn't always been psychotic, unbalanced, and insane.

No.

Before the war, he had been a normal man.

Young, handsome, intelligent.

He did like to do magic and ventriloquism, but then it was just for the oooh's and aaah's of the audience.

That's where he had met his wife actually.

Marjorie on his lap and one particularly lovely pair of bright, laughing eyes in the audience.

Marjorie didn't talk then, except through Chester. She wasn't sentient or murderous or anything but wood and fabric and paint.

And Chester's bright joyful imagination.

After the dutiful applause had subsided, the woman with the bright eyes had come up to him.

"That was _fantastic_," she'd gushed, smiling her lovely eyes at him. "And isn't she adorable?"

They smiled at each other, then. And he'd asked her out to dinner.

The next week in a fit of unbridled excitement and new love, they got married.

Spent two intoxicating days together.

And then Chester Creb left for war.

* * *

><p>When he got back, it was with a metal plate in his head to replace the shrapnel and a yearning to return to a time when things made sense.<p>

He tried not to notice it, the way his wife and her best friend (whose husband had not returned from the Normandy Beach) looked at each other.

The way _she_ used to look at _him_.

When he tried to touch her, anxiety overwhelmed him and his head split in two.

When she consented to touch him, the same happened.

And he didn't know why.

And she lost patience.

The horrors of the war chased him at night, his own ineptitudes haunted him during the day.

And his wife, well, his embarrassed, disaffected wife, tried to pretend he wasn't there at all.

So Chester Creb, war veteran and slightly lost young man, sought solace in his hobbies of ventriloquism and stage magic.

All of his sundries were stored in the garage.

He sorted through them one at a time, a tentative, dawning smile on his thin, drawn face.

And when he finally came to her box and opened it, she stared up at him and spoke to him for the very first time.

"Oh, Chester, you're back! I'm so glad! I've missed you!"

She sounded so happy, so relieved. As though she actually _cared_ and was _glad_ for his return.

"And you look so dapper in your uniform!"

His uniform.

It was, in actuality, his security blanket in this new unsettling world he had come to inhabit.

When he had donned the uniform to go off to fight for his country, he had known and understood his place in the world. He had been glad to do it.

And he had known that if and when he came home, it would be the most wonderful, most loving wife in the whole world.

All that had changed.

But the uniform had not.

So he clung to it, wore it day in and day out, because it was a comfort and peace to him.

Back when he had potential and a future and meaning in his life.

Back when there was no plate in his head and he was easily fully functional man.

Now, he was adrift. Fractured. A shadow of his former self.

The world had moved on.

He had difficulty finding and holding employment.

His wife loved another.

Woman, even.

And Chester just couldn't come to grips with it all.

And he began to slowly slip.

He floundered, he flailed.

He was weak and unsure.

But Marjorie was strong and confident.

She knew what was going on. She understood. And she promised to get him through it.

"Just you and me, Chester. I'm the only one who's truly ever cared about you anyway."

Because she was the only one who honestly and absolutely loved him.

So much so that she killed his wife for him. And her female lover as well.

She had done it for him, she said. Because they _deserved_ it for hurting him.

He knew then that he had to take care of her, make her happy, give her all the best.

Because that was what she tried to do for him.

Selling chameleons was an unusual racket, no doubt about that.

And the jacket, well the jacket was an unusual color, no doubt about that.

But the wonderful thing was the chameleons. Ah, chameleons. Fascinating animals.

They could change their color at will. Blend into their environment.

They never felt like outcasts. They never failed to belong.

They were Chester's dream. To always be just right.

Accepted.

And so it was that he was on the run.

From the authorities who were suspicious of the bloody deaths taken place in his house. From his old friends and family who grimaced at his Marjorie and the nervous twitch in his left eye.

From anyone and everyone who dared to look too closely into his clear blue eyes and glimpse the lurking madness within.

At least he still had Marjorie.

His one constant.

Lately though Marjorie had been becoming more and more demanding and angry and discontent with their life together.

She spoke harshly to him, made him feel confused and small.

But it was only because she loved him, really.

And was trying to help him.

He would just have to work harder, do better.

To make her proud of him.

And happy again.

And perhaps there would be a little room left for him.

And his magical thinking.

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><p><strong>Oh, Neil Patrick Harris (I mean, Doogy Howser, I mean, Barney Stinson, I mean, Lance - Undercover Brother -"This isn't the Taco Bell!"), how could you do this to me?! I think I went blind from shock! Argh! <strong>

**Great performance, tho. **

**Well, I wrote this so I could sleep properly and move on with my life. Ha!**

**Thanks to my lovely guest reviewer, MaverickPaxAPunch, Jurana Keri, shyangel101, and brigid1318 for graciously reviewing. :)**

**Everybody appreciates feedback. Leave a review if you like.**


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